Warp-knit fabric and method of making the same



Oct. 18, 1938. T. H. JOHNSON WARP-KNIT FABRIC AND METHOD OF MAKING THE SAME Fi led Feb. 24. 1958 w l 2 fir Patented Oct. 18, 1938 PATENT OFFICE WARP-KNIT FABRIC AND METHOD OF MAK- ING THE SAME Thomas H. Johnson, Jackson Heights, N. Y., as-

signor to American Bemberg Corporation, New

York, N. Y., a corporation of Delaware Application February 24, 1938, Serial No. 192,353

2 Claims. (01. 66-192) The present invention relates to warp-knit fabrics but primarily has for its purpose the produc-- I ping, sueding, etc.

In the printing of warp-knit fabricswhen a steaming and subsequent washing are required it is impracticable to use the fabric without in some way attempting to overcome the curling or rolling inward of the selvages. Various expedients have been'attempted such as attaching gummed paper to the selvages, the addition of a woven tape, using stiffening agents on the selvages, etc.

A However, none of these methods has proven particularly satisfactory.

The present invention has been found to eliminate the foregoing'disadvantages in the handling of warp-knit fabric and comprises knitting onto the body of the fabric, simultaneously with the knitting of the body of the fabric, a non-curling selvage. This method is obviously the most practical manner of producing a warp-knit fabric with non-curling selvages, both from the standpoint of production methods as well as in the lowering of the cost thereof.

While most warp-knit fabrics possess an inherent tendency to curl or roll inward at the selvages I have found it is possible to make a certain type of fabric on a warp-knitting machine which will be flat and not curl at the selvages. I, therefore,'conceived the idea of knitting this non-curling type of fabric in narrow strips on either side of the body of the fabric thus forming selvages which do not curl or roll in- 40 wardly at the edges. As hereinbefore mentioned these selvages areformed or knitted simultaneously with the main body of the fabric. The body of the fabric may be made up of either plain Jersey, satin jersey or any other suitable and desired construction.

It is therefore one object of the present inven tion to produce a warp-knit fabric having noncuriing selvages and a method of making the curling selvages by a method which is more practical and economical than any other methods heretofore resorted to in the art.

These and other objects will in part become obvious and will in part be pointed out in the 5 following specification and appended claims when studied in connection with the attached drawing, in which is illustrated a plan view of a piece of my improved. warp-knit fabric made in accordance with my novel method.

My improved warp-knit fabric with non-curling selvages is made on a conventional tricot warpknitting machine such as is used for making laces and jersey fabrics. Such fabrics are produced upon such machines by linking 'or looping together upon the needles, the threads which are fed to the needles through guides arranged on guide bars, which guide bars traverse the desired distance from right to left in the making of the fabric desired. 20 In my improved fabric two or more warp or body threads are employed in making the fabric '(two being shown in the drawing) as A, B. These are threaded through two or more sets of guides on as many separate guide bars, which guide bars 2 move from right to left in opposite directions, and lap or 100;) the threads on the needles in the usual way for making jersey -fabrics. There is thus produced the ordinary jersey fabric with the threads A, B. -30

I now add one or more vsets of threads C which extend inwardly and course-wise from the margin of the main body fabric a plurality of wales in order to form the selvages.

This additional set of threads is fed through 35 guides arranged on an additional guide bar which is arranged back of the front and middle guide ries, in addition to the number of threads necessary to produce the desired width offabric, a sufllcient number of extra threads to produce one inch, which may be more or less, of extra fabric on either side of the main body of the fabric.- The back guide bar is used to carry the same number of threads, and in the same relative position, as the extra threads on the middle guide 'bar. These threads are indicated by the letter C. 66

woven fabric.

. The C threads carried by the back bar are laid in the fabric by the bar ascending so that its guides are between the needles and descending so as to bring them between the same needles although it does not return until the threads from the middle guide bar have been lapped or looped over the needles. The threads from the back bar are thus trapped or inlaid by the threads from the middle guide bar and held by them.

When the back bar has returned below the needles, it traverses a-plurality of needles to the right, and then after going up through the needies and repeating the process above described and returning again through the same needles traverses back to its first position. This is done, simultaneously with the operation of the front and middle guide bars, on both sides of the main body of the fabric.

The back bar traverses a plurality of needles and, when the end of such traverse is reached, goes up between the needles then adjacent to the guides and returns between the same needles without lapping or looping its threads over those needles, as the middle guide bar in the meantime will have done with its threads.

It will, of course, be seen at once that the greater the number of needles the back guide bar thus traverses, the greater will be the width of Y the selvage. Following now, onthe drawing, the course of the weft-wise threads C which are carried on the back guide bar, seven being taken for illustration, merely, traverse to the right, as shown in the drawing four wales and then travel to the left the samenumber of wales. It is, of course understood that the number of wales that the course-wise threads C are carried may vary accordingly as desired.

It is also possible that the selvage may be formed from a single thread running from a cone on either side of the warp threads and the single thread be traversed back and forth the desired number of wales to obtain the flat and noncurling selvage. Another possibility which presents itself is that a tricot warp knitting machine having only two bars may be employed and an attachment placed thereon to guide the threads C over and under the loops of the main fabric at the edges to form the selvage.

The gist of the invention therefore resides in the knitting of a non-curling fabric in the form of a selvage which is made simultaneously with and as a part of the warpknit main body portion of the said fabric;

It is obvious that many variations may be made in the knit fabric used and the method of making-such a fabric while utilizing the invention of the present application and it is not intended to restrict the invention to the particular descriptions or examples given herein. The terms used in describing the invention have been used in a descriptive sense and not as terms of limitation and it is intended that all equivalents thereof be included within the scope of the appended claims.

What I claim is: Y

1. A fiat knit-warp fabric having incorporated therein at least one unknit thread along each selvage, each unknit thread extending inwardly over only a limited number of wales whereby the central portion of the fabric is devoid of unknit threads.

2. In a method of making a flat knit-warp fabric the steps of incorporating therein at least one unknit thread along each selvage, each unknit thread extending inwardly over only a limited number of wales whereby the central portion of the fabric is devoid of unknit threads.

THOS. H. JOHNSON. 

